Dashed Opportunities
by BlessedWhiteBranwen
Summary: The Leviathan and the Hyperion raided the Moros to rescue their comrade, but there was no Jim to be found. Merely hours before, he had been taken by forces unknown whose intentions are anything but benign. ((Starcraft 2 AU - infested Raynor))
1. Chapter 1

Starcraft (c) Blizzard Entertainment.

 **Dashed Opportunities**

Captain Matthew Horner stood at the bridge of his ship, peering out the display window while the bridge officers attended to their tasks with great efficiency. His attention was encapsulated by the Moros, the Dominion Prison ship that held Jim's cell, and he felt the distinct unease at the fleshy tendrils piercing through her hull from Kerrigan's flag ship, the Leviathan Zerg.

They had performed their role to the best of their abilities, de-crypted the Adjutant's AI and managed to locate the vessel despite its random jump patterns by catching it unawares.

All that truly remained was for Kerrigan to rescue Jim. As for what condition he was in, and what his reaction would be to the new Queen of Blades? Well, only time would tell in that regard.

"Hail from the Zerg Leviathan, sir." The communications specialist called, and Horner immediately snapped to attention.

"Thank god," he breathed in relief.

"I can only hope Jim is in one piece." The Crown prince Valerion stood at the holographic matrix, exhaling a visible sigh of relief. An unusually casual display of concern before he cleared his throat.

"Please, put Kerrigan through." He told the comms officer with a nod as Horner came to his side, his hands behind his back in a formal manner.

The screen flickered to life, and Horner didn't think he'd ever get used to seeing Kerrigan as she was. Years of conditioning had transformed Kerrigan into an irredeemable monster, even now their goals aligned this was still something that made him uncomfortable to see on a fundamental level.

"Matt." Kerrigan's voice came over the com channel, unnaturally echoing thanks to the duality of her voice and her telepathy speaking in unison. "He isn't here."

"Kerrigan?" Horner questioned quietly, not quite believing what he'd heard.

"I cannot sense him anyway on this ship."

"What-! ... but - that's not possible." Valerian declared. "Our specialist, he decrypted the adjutant's instructions perfectly."

"Then that information was obsolete." The Queen of blade's voice was like razors, the edge of anger in her tone. "Jim is still out there, and outside of our grasp."

"For all we know, he could be on his way to my father, by now." Prince Valarion growled.

The mention of Mengsk caused a twitch across Kerrigan's infested features, a look of anger flashed across her features before it coaxed to a stoic mask again. And against the powers of a god made flesh, angering her was not conducive to a long life.

"Its possible he was transferred to a different facility before our arrival. It could have been merely days or hours." Horner cursed under his breath, leaning heavily against the holo-projector with a growl of frustration. "Damn it. We're back to square one."

Kerrigan's gaze flickered downwards, her luminescent eyes glowing an unnaturally bright purple with a huff of irritation before she resolved herself.

"Not entirely." Kerrigan began, "The piece of the wreckage remaining contains the memory core of the main computer manifest. Perhaps if we can salvage it, your specialist can retrieve the information we will need to rescue Jim. And then... then I intended to head for Korhol."

"We will send a scouting and engineering crew over to the derelict to retrieve the core immediately." Horner said, directing silent orders to an officer with a quick chop of his hand.

"And then, we should retreat to a safe system via the FTL." Valerion suggested, "Doubtlessly my father knows what we've done here and will send the Dominion fleet to destroy both of us."

"Kerrigan, I'll send you the co-ordinates over the Comm relay," Horner said, pressing a sequence of holokeys on the panel below. "We'll rendezvous here as soon as we're done with the salvage."

Kerrigan paused to examine the transmission and inclined her head once. "We will see you there."

The holographic screen shut down, and with it, it felt like all their hopes had drained with it.

* * *

 **Two Hours Earlier**

James Raynor's eyes flickered opened, and found himself forcing them closed again against an intrusive light that burned into his retinas. He found himself on his knees, but his entire body felt like it weight a thousand tonnes. Even the effort of keeping himself conscious was monumental, but he could feel two heavy pairs of hands seizing him by the arms and holding him up.

The light flickered across his eyes again, and Jim knew it wasn't from the door opening to a bright hallway, but something far more focused. But he couldn't take in much else. The details were slowing being lost as a powerful sedative was seeping away his consciousness. He didn't even know when he'd been stuck with the needle, but a twinge at the back of his neck told him it must have been while he slept.

"It seems the sedative isn't working as quickly as I had expected," The Doctor said with a note of delight. "It seems our Marshal Raynor is far more persistent than even I anticipated. How absolutely marvellous."

Jim would have spat at the back-handed compliment if his body weren't so wrapped up in the haze of lethargy.

"Yes... yes, he will serve our purposes quite nicely." The Doctor said with his thick accent, pocketing the small touch light after giving a cursory visual inspection.

Jim was hoisted to his feet by two thick-set men, hauled him to his feet and dragged him out by the arms. Unfortunately, the sedative in his system left Jim with little strength to spare. The toy thugs unshackled his wrists and forced him onto a flat metal patient's cot. Large thick straps of leather followed by bands of metal pressed him down hard against the uncomfortable surface across his shoulders, torso, waist, thighs and ankles. They were so tight, Jim could hardly breath, let alone think about escaping.

"Wh... where are you taking me...?" The words were heavy in his throat, and his tongue was woollen and fuzzy.

"Oh my dear, Marshal Raynor, its nothing you need to worry about." The doctor placed a hand on his shoulder sagely, as though father imparting wisdom to a son. "We are simply carrying out our orders. It seems a great mind has taken notice of you, my friend. And he's deemed you worthy to receive his blessing, in doing so wishes to award you with a station that will befit your coming status. So, we as his loyal agents are going to help you transition into your new role on behalf of the Great Dark One."

The Doctor, a man wearing surgical robs and a visor over her eyes smiled down at him. The ship's lights, still painful to his drug addled vision, illuminated his outline like a halo as the creep smiled unconvincingly down at Jim, like two meat hooks pulling flesh into an unnatural stretch.

Jim tried to fight against the restraints by the last of his strength felt like it was being sapped away, a question like ice dripped down his spine followed him into unconsciousness.

"Now Mr Raynor, do tell me... how familiar are you with the Zerg infestation process?"


	2. Chapter 2

Starcraft (a) Blizzard Entertainment

 **Dashed Opportunities**

 **Chapter 2**

Consciousness played an elusive game with Jim Raynor.

For a long time, he tried to climb his way back to the waking world, only to be injected with some sort of highly concentrated cocktail which forced him back to oblivion again. Darkness held no comforts either. He'd been assaulted with visions; things he wasn't sure were factual, or simply a state of his drug-addled psyche. He remembered a white light burning into his retinas, blocked occasionally by a horde of lab technicians looming over him, chattering indistinctly to his fuzzy hearing and a sharp twisting sensation boring into the pit of his stomach.

Feeling returned to his extremities as his mind shook off the sedatives for what felt like the hundredth time.

For a moment, Jim was almost convinced he hadn't. He felt a surreal weightlessness, like the gravity generators had been knocked offline, suspending him in mid air.

His arms and legs were straight and ridged against his sides, as if bound by some sort of invisible harnesses. Jim tried to turn his head to survey his surroundings, but found he couldn't move his head at all.

At the very least, Jim could tell he was in some sort of laboratory. The ceiling, what little he could see, was clinically white. He could hear the rhythmic beep of monitors, the steady thrum of machines and a scent reminded him all too uncomfortably of a med bay. His scalp had been shaven and he stripped to his undergarments – something he was too aware of thanks to the chill nipping at his skin. Jim flexed his fingers, trying to figure out some plan to get out of here; to escape from this insane place.

Sensing his motion, the monitor system beeped twice and a powerful electric current surged through Jim's entire body. His nerves exploded in pain, and save for the first involuntary cry of pain, he couldn't move. The jolt had rendered him utterly immobile, his extremities were totally numb – but despite paralysis wrapping his body, he could feel something. A slight twisting sensation that spread painfully from the pit of his stomach before settling.

"Ah, Mr Raynor. So glad you could join us today." A voice said, a grandfatherly sounding one too.

Jim could hear muted footsteps approaching and that uneasy weightlessness returned as he felt himself being lowered closer to the ground. His eyes darted back and forth, just about the only thing he could still do.

"Ah, yes. Protoss technology." The Doctor explained, gesturing up to what Jim could now recognise as an atheistically Protoss design, albeit painted gunmetal and red - The signature colours of the Mobius foundation.

"Remarkable really. Quite ingenious. The medical applications alone are worth the effort it takes to procure these items. As you can understand, this device allows us to suspend a patient in mid-air using anti-gravity technology and we can manipulate the patient into more… viable positions for surgery. The potential to save lives is incredible."

The Doctor gave a short mirthless laugh. Any features that betrayed his emotions were hidden behind a set of medical goggles and a surgical mask. Peripherally its almost as if Jim could see the Doctor's shoulders slump, as if resigning to some inevitable and distasteful conclusion.

He spoke with a mournful tone. "But of course, you're no ordinary patient, are you Mr Raynor? No. You're here to become a new man. A new… transcendent level of man."

The Doctor ambled out of Jim's line of sight, over to a row of computer monitors. Typing keys rang hollowly through the air, ordering the machine to bring up some sort of biometric data. Of course, Jim couldn't read it from this angle, his body still frozen in a state of paralysis.

"You see, Mr Raynor, the Hyper evolutionary virus is quite unpredictable with its results. Often infested terrans lose any kind of higher thought patterns. In extreme cases, they become bloated misshapen Aberrations – I believe you experienced their peculiarity first hand on Meinhoff." The Doctor paused, as if to collect his thoughts on the matter before returning to address his immobile patient.

"Of course, the Zerg have long since incorporated that mutated strain of infested Terran into their swarm a long time ago."

There's a rueful tone in his voice, and it drives Jim to even greater depths of anger. These were things he already knew, and frankly, he wished he could bite his tongue. He'd rather die choking to death than listen to this old man drone on about poor bastards-turn-monsters. That, and it was probably the only real shot for freedom he'd have, but that was a pipe dream.

"More often than not, an infested terran becomes little more than a suicide bomber in service to the swarm. Or attempt to kill themselves when they regain some former glimpse of themselves rather than exist as the transcendent beings they've become – like your Queen of Blades, Kerrigan."

Ain't nothing 'transcendent' about being a slave to a monster, doc! Jim spat in his mind, anger rising in his gullet.

"The Terran Governments experimented with this process for many years. Mutates for instance; Humans infused with Zerg DNA and nanites to keep their more… primal urges in check. Then, of course, there's the Protoss who developed a nanomachine vaccine. Then there's the Queen of Blade's own experiments. A stroke of brilliance really - she discovered a way of reliably making Human-Zerg hybrids not unlike herself. Retaining intelligence and their skills while gaining the benefits of a Zerg. Advanced healing, stamina, strength, agility, prehensile limbs."

The Doctor shakes his head, his hands clasped behind his back. "One should admire such ingenuity."

Jim could heard the doctor's footfalls grow further away, the hiss of a storage capsule unsealing and a heavy lid scrapping away. Then, he heard an organic crackling and chittering, like some kind of over-sized insert. His blood turned to ice, and his stomach twisted once more as he felt himself being raised a foot higher.

"Now, I'm afraid that this will be painful." The Doctor returned to his side, hefted up what looked like some sort of squirming Zerg larva. It was long and thin, with hundreds of tiny razor-like legs like a centipede's. Its head was flat with two pairs of elongated spindly legs. "For your apotheosis to be complete to Lord Amon's satisfaction, there's a crucial component missing. You see, its been my finding the common thread between one's ability to retain function and intelligence post-infestation is directly proportionate to their psionic potential."

The Doctor looked down at the creature twisting in his grip, struggling to keep it from its helpless victim. "That's what this Spine is for. A genetically modified Zerg larva. Not only will this help guide your evolution, it creates almost a… psionic potential if you will. Once your apotheosis is complete, its psionic power will be no more separate from you than your heart from your chest."

The Doctor paused, his head turning away as if listening to some radio device going off in his ear. "I apologise, Mr Raynor. It appears we're become rather short on time."

Jim could barely begin to process the horror he was being subjected to before his world tip sharply on its side.

The agony was utterly unbearable. If Jim had the capacity to scream he would let out a roar even the dead back on Earth could hear. All four of the creature's spine-like limbs buried themselves deep into his flesh, two burrowed into his temples piercing through his skull and alien tendrils bored into his brain. The second two wrapped around his neck. He felt tiny fangs, like razor shape needles, piercing through his flesh and bone, penetrating his nerves. The agonising sensation repeated over and over again until the Zerg spine's tail whipped out and buried into his flesh. It severed Jim's spine through, tunnelling deep into his body until it connected with the strange object in the pit of his stomach.

In that instant, Jim felt like his insides were set aflame and taken a life of their own. The squirmed and warred with themselves, it felt like his very insides were twisting and warping in ways that defied human logic and left him gasping for air. His heart pounded in his chest and pain blurred the edges of his vision. The tendrils around his mind crushing every single thought out of existence. Voices, hundreds of thousands of whispers like a chorus poured into his mind, overwhelming him as his world went black.

* * *

"He's going Catatonic!" Monitoring stations short out warnings from the observation platform just above the laboratory. Doctor Rimmer peered at the readings, her gaze shifting from them to the patient they were observing below.

"Calm yourselves. We knew that second stage implantation would be traumatic. Of course it would cause a murmur in his neural readings. Give it a few seconds then check again." She ordered quickly. True enough, the monitoring feeds showed the patient's vital signs approaching more tolerable ranges.

Raynor had been left along, the gravity well had been shut off and all machines removed from the room. His immobile body was left, unceremoniously dumped on the floor where it lay as Doctor Mallard left the room and joined them in the observation lounge.

"I can't guarantee the good Marshal's mind would be as pliant if we pushed ahead our time table." Doctor Mallard voiced his concern.

Doctor Rimmer shook her head, her short blond hair swaying as she did. "Lord Amon has plans we can scarcely comprehend. He will play a personally role in building his new General. And if he requires us accelerate our creation of Jordas then the Dark Lord will make up for any faults our design." She smirked hollowly. "We're only mortals after all."

Attendants worked at their various stations fervently coping out data, adjusting calculations and attending to other menial duties. Doctor Rimmer and Doctor Mallard observed the patient, twitching and spasming on the lab floor with a cool clinical detachment.

"Look." Doctor Mallard said, nodding towards the observation chamber below. Already, a thin layer of creep was seeping through his pours, wrapping up the man's body in a layer of orange and brown flesh."In a few more moments, a complete chrysalis will form and the apotheosis will have begun in earnest."

Doctor Rimmer nodded in agreement, taking a particular delight as the pink and brown fleshy membrane started to bloat and expand before their eyes, growing into a cacoon. She could see the ghostly frame of their patient in the translucent surface.

She allowed a smile, bringing up a holographic projection of Raynor's body scan. information provided by microscope probes inserted throughout his body - a precaution to monitor the process that would see Raynor shed this pathetic terran flesh and ascend to something akin to a demigod. With a note of satisfaction she watched the spine interact with the viral phage they'd implanted in his abdomen two days ago. Already the phage was spreading mutagen throughout his system and the first signs of mutation had began.

"From the pathetic mortal flesh of Jim Raynor, Jordas will be born. I cannot wait to see what a thing of beauty our lord will create."


End file.
